User blog:MacTheEpic/Epic (117: Reporting BacK)
POV: Mac The walk to the evac zone was surprisingly peaceful, considering Ragde had woken up within a minute of us walking. He obviously couldn't walk if he was unconcious (and still didn't even after he woke up). So we dragged him by his feet using some rope we found in his camp. When he did wake up, he was silent. In fact, we probably wouldn't have noticed him waking up if he didn't cough every other minute, he was either being obnoxious or was legitimately sick. We tried asking him a few questions, but he kept his mouth shut, and flipped me off occasionally. He didn't seem to mind being dragged against the muddy dirt and the wet grasses that led out of it. We left him unmasked and without his hat. In fact, we stripped him down to shorts, a simple blue shirt, and he was completely barefoot. We stripped him of his weapons, too. He had quite the arsenal with him. He had a katana I didn't notice earlier on his back (it was camoflauged). Normally, I would've felt it's blade to test if it was still sharp. But there was no need, I could tell it was just by looking at it, and beyond that, it had a green liquid embedded within it, that seemed to be secreted on one side of the blade. It didn't look cosmetic to me, so I guessed that the liquid had some purpose, but I wasn't going to risk getting poisoned or something by touching it to find out. He had other interesting weaponry as well. He had a revolver which seems to shoot out blasts of energy (photons or plasma maybe), instead of bullets, the gun had futuristic green marks of light on it. He of course had the shotgun, but it seemed like a regular double barreled shotgun. And finally, he had what appeared to be a railgun. But it appeared to be deactivated. Where the hell did he get all of these weapons? I could probably write an essay about this dude's entire arsenal but I don't think I could be able to answer where he got most of those weapons, I haven't even seen Ssenkrad's men with weapons like this. I'd have to get Charlie (that tech guy we briefly mentioned back in chapter 114) to analyze them at HQ later. Anyway, we were all pretty quiet on the walk back to the evac zone. I don't really know why but we just seemed to tired to talk. We eventually did get to the evac zone, the helicopter arrived and we all got on and took Ragde with us. ---- POV: Edgar We were the second team to get back to HQ, after Rad and Cat. "What happened to her?" asked Abbey worringly, motioning towards the unconcious Eva in my arms. "Some weird... thing attacked us in the ruins and she took the brunt of it. She's alive but I'm not sure what's wrong with her. She doesn't seem to be waking up." I told her. "Tyler, get Eva to the med-bay, check her vitals and see if you can find out what's wrong with her." Abbey said to a man wearing medical scrubs. The man went to go get gurney and came back, he carefully took Eva from my arms and placed her on the gurney and took her to another room. Abbey turned back to 13 and I. "So, did you guys find anything?" she asked. I nodded, "I'm not sure what it is but it's some sort of orb, I think.", I said, taking out the capsule with the orb floating inside of it. Abbey's eyes widened, "Can you open it so I can touch it or something?" she asked. "No, this thing is HOT. You might as well have a piece of the sun right here. It talked about something called the 'Arukian Empire' to 13 and said that they trust he'll know what to do with it and some weird stuff." I told her. "Arukian Empire? I'll see what I can find in the database." She said, turning to her computer. "We have a database?" asked 13. "No, we just hack into Ssenkrad's and see what we can find." replied Abbey as she was typing at what seemed to be close to the speed of light. "Huh." "What is it?" I asked her. "There's a short entry about them in the database, but most of it is just redacted information... but here's something interesting. There's a quick mention of a serum, serum V-487." She said. "So? Its probably one of the serums they use to brainwash people." I pointed out. "I thought that too but all of the serum's names correspond to the name of the factories that they are made in, for example, serum F-912 would be made in factory F-912, but this one doesn't have a factory on-record." She said with a curious look. "What does that mean?" 13 asked. "It means one of two things, both equally alarming. They're making this serum in secret, and off-record, therefore the factory is off-record. But this can't be the case because then there would be no mention of the serum anywhere as well. So this can only mean one thing, they didn't make this serum, and they don't have the means to reproduce it yet because there isn't a factory." She said. "Can you see what you can find in the database about it?" I asked. She began typing. And then gave a confused look. "Apparently I don't have clearance to view it, which is weird because we've hacked into the highest possible clearance level so this shouldn't be a problem." She said. She pressed a few more buttons, until a loud alarm noise started to thunder from the computer. "What is it?" I asked. "Crap! The system is being hijacked!" She said, frantically pressing buttons. "Do something!" I told her. "I'm trying!" The screen went black and a simple, thin, white, triangle appeared on it. "Goodbye." It said in a monotone voice. And then computer short-circuited and blew up. Erik came rushing in from the next room over. "What the hell was that?" He said. "Abbey tried to find out more about this and the computer blew up." I said, motioning towards the orb. "Hey, you used to work for Ssenkrad, do you know of anything called serum V-487?" I asked him. He grimaced. "Stay away from that." He said in a solemn tone. "Why?" I asked. "I don't know that much about it, but it's part of some sort of project Ssenkrad's been working on for ages. He'd ramble on and on about the 'Arukian Empire' and how they were a society of utter perfection, about its prophecies, about something called "The Vessel", and how "The Vessel" possessed nigh-omnipotent powers." Erik said, with his eyes not blinking once, his voice had a hint of fear. "Wait, slow down, what's 'The Vessel'?" 13 asked. "The Arukian Empire is an ancient alien civilization, according to Ssenkrad. They were apparently the dominating force in our galaxy, and apparently... they started life on Earth." said Erik. "Wait, the Arukians created humans?" I asked. "No, they planted the bacteria and microbes and stuff that eventually led to us. Anyway, apparently the Arukians vanished one day, leaving most of the galaxy empty of intelligent life since they made up most of it. No one knows where they went or anything, Ssenkrad said that they were either too advanced for their own good or they... transcended. I'm not sure what he meant by that though." Erik paused. And then he continued, "Ssenkrad's favorite part about the Arukians was their prophecies. Specifically one of the Vessel. In the prophecy they talk about a being with almost godlike powers who will come when the times are the darkest, and protect the world." "So what does the serum have to do with it?" Abbey asked. "I don't know exactly what V-487 does but I have a damn good guess. The entire line 'V' class serums were made to unleash latent... 'abilities' in humans. Ssenkrad believed that the Arukians left a clue hidden within ourselves that would lead us to the Arukians, but only when our minds evolve to the level of the Arukians. So, the 'V' serums were made to push the mind of humanity to it's limit and find the Arukians and more importantly, the Vessel. But mostly the serums just ended up making people go insane and some committed suicide immediately after taking the serum. Tons of 'V' serums were made, whenever I left with you guys, they just finished making V-254, and my guess is that V-487 is just the latest version of the serum." Erik continued, "In the early phases, there was one version serum where all the test subjects went missing. But I forget the number. Ssenkrad was apparently very excited with the results of the serum but ended up executing most of his staff whenever the test subjects were reported missing before Ssenkrad could talk to them." He finished. I began to ask a question that I wouldn't finish. "What kind of abilities did the seru-" Mac, Natalie, and Rue burst in through the door. "AYOOOO WHAT UP PARTY PEOPLE!" Mac yelled. Natalie looked over to him, "Don't do that ever again." Mac gave an awkward laugh and then looked down. "We captured a familiar face." Rue said, dragging what appeared to be a person. Rue dragged the person in front of my feet and left him there. I was staring at myself, only not really. It was Ragde, my robot clone. He was supposed to be dead. You don't just survive an entire wave of nuclear missiles. "Ragde." I said simply. "Asswipe." He said simply. "I actually don't know who this is." Abbey pointed out. "I'll tell you the story later." said Rue, "But you know him as the guy who cut Mac's leg." "It still hurts too." Mac said, slowly inching toward Natalie, who was slowly inching away. It was fairly obvious Mac liked Natalie, I admit she is very attractive but she's simply not my type. In any case, Mac's endeavours to impress Natalie should make for great entertainment around HQ. It gets pretty boring around here. "Why's the computer broken?" asked Rue. "It blew up." replied Abbey. "...o-..oh." said Rue, surprised. "We have a back-up so it's all good." she said, spinning her chair over to another computer on the other side of the desk. "Besides Ragde, we also found this." said Natalie, putting a tube of blue liquid with a label on the desk. Abbey's eyes widened. "This is serum V-487! We were just talking about this!" Abbey grabbed the serum and examined it under a light. "We could have Ima and Blah examine it in the lab." Mac suggested, Abbey nodded, "13, take this to the lab and give it to Ima and Blah please." 13 jumped up and grabbed the serum and ran out to the lab. "So what did everyone else find?" asked Mac. "Cat and Rad found the files containing info on the EMP thing, which the computer is analyzing right now, and it'll tell us when it's found something interesting. Edgar, 13, and Eva found that," she motioned toward the orb,"they were attacked by a 'thing' and Eva's unconcious in the med-bay right now." "Is she okay?" asked Rue. "Tyler, one of our medics, is looking at her right now." replied Abbey. Abbey quickly recapped everything Erik had said about the Arukian Empire, the serum, etc. "Erik, is this all true?" Mac asked. "I don't know if the Arukian Empire actually exists, I thought Ssenkrad was just chasing a myth, a fairy tale, but if what 13 and Edgar say is true about that orb, then Ssenkrad just got even more dangerous." He said. "Wait, what'd they say about the orb?" Mac asked. I told him about the tablet and how 13 summoned the orb and what it said to him. "13 summoned it? How?" he asked. "He doesn't know, he just read something off the tablet." I replied. "I thought he didn't understand it." He said. "He thought so too, but he just somehow knew." I told him. "Huh." He said. "What?" I asked. "Well... what if 13 has something to do with the Arukians?" He said. "What? That's.." I couldn't find the words. "Well, just think about it, how would he know? You didn't understand the tablet either, but somehow 13 could, and the way the orb simply trusted itself to 13? 13 may not know it, but he has something to do with this." He finished. He had a point, 13 was always odd, but he was cool. It's the reason Eva and I picked him at the shelter. He stood out. At least I think it was a shelter. Come to think of it I don't really remember all that well, I'll ask Eva about it when she wakes up, she has a better memory than I do. But what was even weirder about 13 is that Eva and I only discovered our psychic powers after we got him. And it happened very soon after we got him. Almost too soon. There were other shady details about 13 as well but I don't think Eva and I ever actually stopped to think about it. He's our cat, and technically our pet, but he's more than that, he's family. I don't think he'd be a part of this and simply not tell us unless he doesn't know. "Just, ask him about it." Mac finally said. "See if he knows anything." Mac reached down and grabbed Ragde by his feet, "Where's the jail cells?" he asked. "Natalie knows, she'll show you." said Abbey, as she was leaning back on her chair looking at a computer monitor. "Great, I can finally lock up Mac for his incompetence." Natalie said, helping Mac pick up Ragde and she led him to the jail cells. Mac tried to conceal a smile. "I'm gonna go take a look around this place, I haven't really found the time to poke around and get a good feel of the place." said Rue, walking off towards a door and leaving. "I'm gonna go check in with Ima and Blah and see how they're doing with the serum, let me know if the computer finds anything, Edgar." said Abbey, she stood up and walked off to the lab. I sat down in the newly-vacated chair. Normally I'd go check on Eva in the med-bay. But... I had some questions for 13. (End of Episode) I told you guys it was coming and here it is, I hope you guys enjoyed, there's more coming soon. Tell me what you thought about it in the comments, feedback is always greatly appreciated. If you have any questions I'll try to answer unless it involves spoilers. Mac Out! Category:Blog posts